TAX EXECUTIVES: Your CFO Reorganized Your Tax Role. What Do You Do?

Posted on by Kat J

Behind the scenes, I have had private conversations with many Lead Tax Executives who have shared with me the tax organization has just been reorganized and will no longer report to the CFO. Why these situations occur is uncertain to me. What is certain to me is that any CFO who decides to reorganize the lead tax role reporting to anyone other than the CFO, will ultimately create turnover in this role. The Head of Tax of any organization prefers to work directly with the CFO on business strategy. When the CFO and Head of Tax work closely together they can turn tax into a profit center and not a cost center.

The extraordinary tax executives we have worked with over three decades love their job because they love to increase the company’s profit. By working together, they save their company money that would otherwise be lost to international, federal, state and local tax revenue authorities worldwide. Lead tax executives are serious about saving the company money. The way to build a tax department into a profit center is when a CFO and the Head of Tax (HOT) are strategically working together to improve profits. Why would a company structure the HOT reporting relationship to anyone other than the CFO? Just asking?

If you are a Head of Tax who has found yourself in this situation, please contact me for a complimentary consultation at ki***@******ch.com so I can advise you. You can also reach me at 858.232.4415 to set up a time to speak privately. View www.etsearch.com

If you are a CFO who has recently lost your Head of Tax due to a reorganization, please email me at ki***@******ch.com and I will help you in your search.

Hiring A Head of Tax: Learn Why Multinationals Struggle To Hire Tax Leaders

Posted on by Kat J

As a highly experienced tax recruiter with over thirty-three years in the tax executive search profession, I have information to share if you want to know how to attract leaders in the tax profession. As many tax leadership roles unfold due to baby boomer retirements,  multinational corporations are increasingly losing access to the most technically sophisticated tax executives throughout the market. There is an elite pool of underground tax executive talent only accessible through a channel of trusted connectors. While people are distracted by the advances of AI, few people realize the negative impact AI is having on the ability to attract the hidden pool of talented tax professionals. This post addresses important factors affecting a search for a corporate tax executive today.

Understand my views are based upon thirty-three years’ experience communicating with highly educated leaders in the tax profession nationally and internationally. When you spend your professional life communicating  with tax executives with multinational corporations for decades, you learn how identify and reach the very best of the tax profession. They are now increasingly hidden and underground due to the need for greater  privacy. I have been fortunate to meet the most technically sophisticated tax executives around the world who are saving corporations millions, and in some cases billions, in tax dollars. There are CFOs who retain me to help build their tax team as a profit center; and there are CFOs who view their tax organization as a cost center. You learn there is a big difference in how a CFO treats their tax organization. You learn the most technically sophisticated tax executives want to report to the CFO; you learn tax executives want to report directly to the CFO. Companies who have the head of tax reporting to anyone other than the CFO will never be able to access the top tax executive talent. You learn when companies reorganize management and remove the tax executive from reporting to the CFO, they lose access to talented tax executives. There is higher turnover in a lead tax executive role when it does not report directly to the CFO. Most lead tax executives approached by recruiters on a search for Head of Tax will not even consider interviewing with the company if the role is not reporting to the CFO. This prevents extraordinary talent from even considering the lead tax executive role.

When you have a corporate CFO and lead tax executive working together as business partners, you have a corporation that increases income and value of the organization. Happy investors reap the benefits of a management team of a CFO and Head of Tax working together. These extraordinary teams are built. These top management teams do not happen by someone randomly walking in through a corporate resume portal. They do not randomly happen by a contractor recruiter with no deep network in the tax community.  Success happens when you retain an expert tax recruiter to actively pursue top tax talent for your organization. CFOs who retain an expert in tax recruitment will reap the reward working with an expert with a strong and proven tax executive network.

Proven and experienced tax recruiters communicate with technically sophisticated tax executives who understand how to legally use our tax laws to claw back millions and often billions in what would otherwise be corporate income lost forever to tax revenue authorities. Lead tax executives in multinational corporations are fending off tax revenue authorities at state and local, federal and international levels daily. Highly intelligent, technically sophisticated tax executives offer profit-making benefits to the companies who hire them.

Three Reasons Corporations Struggle To Hire A Tax Executive

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3 Secrets CFOs/CHROs Need To Know When Hiring A Lead Tax Executive

Posted on by Kat J
Tax Executive Compensation Study

3 Secrets CFOs/CHROs Need To Know When Hiring A Lead Tax Executive

With more than thirty years of experience, and a track record of more than one thousand tax executive searches successes by our tax executive search team, we have learned a lot about hiring and retaining a lead tax executive for a corporate tax organization. This article’s focus is to help CFOs increase their knowledge in how to attract and retain the best tax executives in the corporate tax profession.  Understanding this information will help you greatly in building  a tax team that saves your organization millions and in some cases billions of dollars in what would otherwise be revenue lost to tax revenue authorities forever. If you do not know this information, you will lose access to the best executives in the tax profession.

CFOS searching for a management level tax executive generally do not hear everything during their tax executive candidate interviews. With over three decades of experience speaking privately to hundreds of thousands of tax executives, we have learned what is important to them. An understanding and awareness of what a tax executive candidate is  thinking may not always come up during your interview with them. Yet it is vitally important for you to be aware of these thoughts in the selection of a lead tax executive(s) for your corporate tax organization. There is a lot of valuable information that a tax executive will share with a trusted tax recruiter, yet the potential employer is unaware of this information that is often unspoken during an interview. You will learn in this article what tax executives  may never tell a potential employer when considering a lead tax executive role within a corporate organization.

   What We Learned From 1000s Of Private Conversations With Lead Tax Executives

  1. Many highly qualified tax executive candidates will never submit their resume to a company job site portal. When you post a tax job on the job boards and interview candidates only from these sources, you remove yourself from the wider pool of technically sophisticated tax executives that may be available to interview with you throughout the tax community. The primary reason multinational corporations today are unable to access extraordinarily talented tax executives for their lead tax role is because these folks are happy, gainfully employed, and not actively looking at new tax opportunities. These gainfully employed tax executives are very busy actively clawing back tax dollars and savings their companies in the millions(billions). These tax leaders are working hand in hand with their corporate CFO to increase tax savings.

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Tax Executives: Become Aware Of Trends Effecting Your Salary – Part 1 In Tax Executive Compensation Report

Posted on by Kat J
Tax Executive Compensation Study

Although we have been sharing this important discovery with our tax executive search clients, we realize it is important to share this with more CFOs, Head of Taxes, and Human Resource professionals who are searching for the very best tax professionals for their organizations. We stumbled upon this salary issue during numerous private conversations with tax executive leaders over the past several months. My thesis and main proposition are organizations advertising open tax jobs online are losing access to the top levels of the tax talent pool due to salary transparency laws and A.I.

After speaking to hundreds in the tax profession, we often hear tax executive candidates telling us the Head of Tax jobs posted had stated salary ranges that are lower than what they are currently making. Therefore, these tax executives had no desire to inquire any further about the tax opportunities we presented to them due to the low salary ranges the companies posted to comply with state salary transparency laws. The top performers in tax have no interest in looking at a new opportunity when the salaries they see posted do not meet salary expectations. We decided to investigate this trend and discovered the new and emerging state salary transparency laws are having a negative impact on a company’s access to a hidden and extraordinary talent pool that is no longer available to them.

We also discovered A.I. gathering salary data from job sites is making the situation even worse because it is leading to salary compression of the lead tax executives we work with constantly. We conducted a compensation study on a corporate Head of Tax to test our theory. Over a 12-week period during October, November, and December 2024, we reached out to over three thousand tax executives and asked for a private discussion with them about their annual compensation. The report that follows in this blog series will discuss the results of our three-month salary study. First, we want to provide you some background information on our Corporate Head of Tax Compensation Report.

The acquisition and retention of a technically skilled Head of Tax is an important asset for every corporation. Companies who hire skilled tax leaders with sophisticated technical tax expertise must also trust these employees with highly sensitive and confidential corporate financial information. The goal of this report on Head of Tax compensation is to ensure organizations have accurate and up-to-date data and information on compensating their Head of Tax. This information is intended to assist a corporation to attract and retain a highly skilled, technically sophisticated lead tax executive. The Head of Tax role is responsible for reducing a company’s overall financial risk and saving income revenue that would otherwise be lost forever to global, international, federal and state and local tax authorities. The Corporate Head of Tax Compensation Report is provided to ensure you have the information necessary to attract and retain a Head of Tax in your multinational organization. Learning about our research will help a company understand what competitors are paying a Head of Tax with the goal of reducing attrition of valuable human assets and maximizing corporate tax savings and profits.

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